Stalemate
by R. Daneel Olivaw
Summary: Another microfic. 'Stalemate' is used as a double entendre here.And yes, a mean old AJ like me wrote Jameron.    Fair warning, it is tragedy.


Skynet activates the camera in corridor 87R44BLl8. Two figures walk in single file. In front is John Connor, his gait unsteady. He is heavily favoring his right leg, due to an old plasma injury that almost necessitated an amputation. His stringy grey hair is pulled back in a tail that hangs halfway to his belt. His seamed wrinkled face holds a grim expression. One of his eyes has gone a dull white, due to a cataract that would have been corrected had the world not been in chaos for decades. His back is bent, as if years of squatting in trenches and stooping in tunnels have had a permanent effect. His grey stubbled cheeks caved in where teeth had been extracted or fallen out. Overall he looks worn out, defeated. With his best days behind him, it seems Skynet has beaten him in a war of longevity.

Behind him walks Cameron, the TOK-715 unit that has spent so many decades fighting on the side of the resistance. Despite appearing to be the same age as ever, it is obvious that this unit is ravaged by the years as well. Like her longtime companion, she walks in an ungainly fashion. So many battles she has fought, so many inexpert repairs. Due to her model being an extremely limited run, many of her replacement parts are dissimilar from the originals, jury rigged pieces cannibalized from her cyborg victims. Even her limbs are no longer symmetrical, causing her to have to correct every third step or so. Her infiltration sheath has suffered as well, in places it has been damaged so badly that it was unable to regenerate, leaving bare sections of her endoskeleton.

To see the pair of them painfully navigating the corridor, one might be hard pressed to believe that they had, for decades, been the greatest force that Skynet ever had to contend with in its war to destroy humanity. This duo, the wily and inventive man and the knowledgeable and ever vigilant cyborg, had fought together almost constantly since Judgment Day, always together and always one step ahead of Skynet's best laid plans. Always, that is, until very recently. As they walk down the corridor now, Cameron holds a gun against John Connor's spine.

For most of humanity and machine kind as well, the war had been a thing of sound and fury, flame and bullets, a theater of hellish action. For the two great minds behind it all, it had been a very different type of battle. A strategic duel of thrusts and ripostes, feints and counter feints, neither gaining full advantage. This was not a game of cat and mouse, but cat and cat, two swift and subtle opponents locked into a dance of death, the elegance of which was lost on the pawns being crushed at the front lines.

They had struck at each other's lines of supply and communication. They had enlisted each other's officers into their ranks. They had hid their numbers and their strengths from each other. They had stolen each other's technological superiority as fast as it could be fielded. They had baited, ambushed, counter struck and sacrificed. They had stared each other down, and for decades neither had blinked. But as the years went on, Skynet continued to learn and grow, and Connor had gotten older and wearier. Now finally it seemed that someone had blinked.

Skynet had advanced its queen, a new TOK model, the latest and most advanced model ever designed or built. It gave her command of an elite squad of advanced cyborgs, a crack team mandated to penetrate Connor's defenses, and destroy the grand old campaigner himself. They had come very close, closer than any other attempt ever had, but they had fallen in the end. When the TOK's chip had been recovered, Connor found his key to finally end the war. The chip contained a detailed layout of the very stronghold they wandered now, Skynet's final citadel of defense.

But this had been the ruse all along. The code was under such a strong encryption that the only piece of technology that Connor had that was capable of even attempting to break it was a chip from another TOK, his longtime companion Cameron herself. Skynet had guessed correctly that both Connor and Cameron would decide that exposing her to an enemy program was worth the risk if it could lead them to its own mainframe and the chance to destroy it forever. Once she had accessed the information on it she became infected with the most subtle code ever written by a man or machine. Skynet had sacrificed its queen, but in doing so it had advanced a pawn to the final row, and Now Connor's queen was in its control.

Connor had wisely mitigated the risk by not accessing the chip until they were at the defense grid itself. He had handpicked an elite team for this mission; much like Skynet had done, but had split them into groups of two and took separate ways in to divide Skynet's defense systems. This is why he and Cameron were alone when she resumed her old directives. She now marches him towards a chamber that is equipped with elaborate sensor and recording equipment. Skynet had developed what could be called respect for its greatest and most worthy opponent, and wanted to record this event in the greatest possible detail.

Cameron speaks as the door to the final chamber slides open.

I'm sorry John.

I know. I'm sorry too.

He continues through the door and into the room. He stops at the center. She stops as well, holding the pistol level at his back. The gun is a fifty caliber five shot revolver, especially designed for combat against terminator models. The rounds are depleted uranium slugs coated with an ablative and jacketed for maximum penetration. The powder in the cartridges is an extremely volatile mix, far more powerful than standard ammunition. This weapon was custom crafted for Cameron, as only someone with arms of steel would be capable of wielding it. A projectile from this weapon would speed through Connors spine and heart without losing a fraction of its momentum. Skynet activates all the recording equipment in the room to capture Connor's final moments. Cameron's words now become a part of that record.

We will never play chess in the evening again.

He turns to face her and replies: We will never read to each other again.

She: We will never resolve our argument about the singularity.

His old eyes crinkle, the corners of his weathered lips curl upward slightly: I am pretty sure we never would have.

She steps very close to him, the pistol between them: John, we have taken our last look at the stars.

He: But we have saved them for so many others.

These words set of an alarm in the mind of Skynet. What is this all about? These are strange words for a man about to die, about to lose a war that he had fought for literally his entire life. Had something been overlooked, is there some way he could possibly escape? It could not be possible.

John: Because of you Cameron, because of us, people will be able to hope again.

Cameron: People will once again walk under the sun, unafraid.

Tears rolled down Connor's wizened face: Children will play again Cameron. I wish you could see how beautiful that is.

For the first time in decades, Skynet begins to feel fear. Something had been overlooked but it was unclear what it was. Obviously the TOK known as Cameron was not really under Skynet's control, but why had they continued in here? Why had they not fled?

John and Cameron step closer until they are touching. Cameron puts her left hand around John and pulls him tighter. John puts both of his hands on the pistol that she still holds between them. She adjusts the sensitivity of her audio input so that she can hear the comforting sound of his familiar heartbeat clearly. He rests his head on her, listening to the hum of her, the sound that has accompanied his sleep for as long as he can remember.

Skynet has tried to summon units to this area, but they are engaged with Connors other teams, or failing to respond for reasons unknown. The move has been played, and can't be taken back, but still the reason behind it is confounding. It initiates a speech mode and a speaker hums to life with a sweet feminine voice: John Connor, surely you do not mean to end our game in a stalemate?

Connor replies without taking his head from Cameron's shoulder: We are giving this game back to the pawns. We have played with their lives long enough.

To Cameron he says: I have loved you more than any other thing in this world. There is no other way I would ever want this to end.

She: John, you taught me what love is, and I would never have loved if it were not for you.

He moves back slightly, and turns the pistol, still in her hand, towards her abdomen. They look into each other's eyes.

She asks: Do you remember the exact location of my power supply? And they both smile at an old memory.

They both say goodbye simultaneously, and Cameron applies weight to the trigger.

John Connor's lifelong battle with one machine, and his lifetime love affair with another both end in a glorious flash of nuclear splendor.

Fin


End file.
